The government, willing to dialogue with the Otomi community: Batres

Angel Bolanos Sanchez

Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, February 6, 2022, p. eleven

The Government of Mexico City reiterated its willingness to dialogue with the members of the Otomi community who maintain taken the facilities of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), but considered that it is not through meetings convened unilaterally and from one day to the next, but with common agreements between all parties, that dialogue can be resumed.

The Secretary of Government, Martí Batres Guadarrama, said that the decree of the head of the local Executive, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, by which the Zacatecas property number 74 was expropriated, as requested by said group to allocate it to a housing project, demonstrates the willingness of the city authorities to meet their demands.

He considered that to demonstrate their willingness to dialogue and as a measure of relaxation they should vacate the INPI facilities.

He clarified that it is not a condition of the capital government to resume the dialogue, since it had already been working under those conditions without there being a reason that justified having resorted to that forceful measure. have agency offices, but I think they should also show a willingness to dialogue by vacating these facilities; these, he added, are necessary for the work carried out by the authorities with indigenous peoples and communities.

It is not a condition, there is a willingness on our part, but let us agree, we tell them, in a common way, jointly, without one party imposing on the other the place and time to resume dialogue between the federal authorities and locals and them, but we will continue to insist that it is important that they vacate these facilities, it would be a significant gesture on their parthe pointed.

In an interview, after leading the commemorative ceremony for the 105th anniversary of the promulgation of the Political Constitution of 1917, Batres, to an express question about whether the Housing Institute of Mexico City would have any budget allocation to finance the Zacatecas project 74, replied that the construction of indigenous housing is one of the priorities of the head of government, Claudia Sheinbaum.

He said that there were already approaches between Invi and the group at another time and hence the importance of resuming the dialogue to develop the project, all the more reason for a disposition to approach and relax on his part..